Opus 2026-377: The Gleaning

We may be approaching a time in history when the results of being civilized run into the accumulated weakness of the gene pool.

I have always assume kids are dumber because of cultural influences.  As a teacher I could often see the potential that was buried under a gilding of absentee parents and woke educators.  It could have been my imagination.  Maybe the dumbing down we see is the natural result of a society that keeps people alive who would normally have died in the course of growing up.  It would not necessarily be from neglect or euthanasia.  The world is a dangerous place and a child that cannot learn to look both ways or insists on getting out of a moving car would not have lived to grow up in the past.  

You would think we would see that in nature.  You would expect deer would be getting smarter as the dumb ones are turned into road kill.  I don’t see it happening.  At the same time I have heard hunters share that the deer seem to know when hunting season begins and disappear.  There must be many variable for survival in different species, even humans.  

Lions culled the herd.  They did not go after the alpha males.  They dragged down the infirm and weak.  During rutting season the strongest stag drives away weaker rivals and thus keeps the blood line strong.  The world of animals has a way of trying to build strength even without knowing the philosophy behind it.

Microbes do the same.  I have not done the research but I have been told that if you chart the deaths from different diseases the rate gradually declines over time.  This is seemingly true even in modern times with things like polio and measles.  The strong have bodies that fight off the disease, the weak succumb.  Some people sailed through the influenza season like it does not apply to them.  Maybe it doesn’t.
    
It is possible the same thing happens in cultures.  Rome did not fall in a day because the barbarians showed up and stomped them.  They did not forget how to make swords.  What they lost was the desire to use them.  Rome had repeated waves of lunatic, sword swinging illiterates that kept pushing at the gates.  Rome eventually died in a whimper.  Are we facing such a time in our world?  Are the barbarians of the Middle East going to bring down the West?  In the short run I am not an optimist.  In the long run the Christians might wake up and begin to assert themselves again.  If that happens it will be no contest.

We live in exciting times.  That is reported to be part of a Chinese curse.  Whether it came from the Chinese or not it is still a thing of concern.

homo unius libri